Canthal Tilt

About

Canthal Tilt refers to a speculative "attractiveness" measurement (akin to Lookism and Looksmaxxing) that measures the angle of the outer corner and inner corner of one's eyes (called the bicanthal plane) to determine if they have positive canthal tilt (known as "hunter eyes"), neutral canthal tilt or negative canthal tilt (known as "prey eyes"). The concept of positive canthal tilt equating to attractiveness was popularized by scientific studies in the 2000s. It later became a central topic within incel communities on imageboard and forum websites like 4chan and Reddit, among others. Ironic memes about canthal tilt eventually surfaced online, becoming commonplace on places like TikTok in the 2020s. Additionally, a canthal tilt TikTok filter gained traction in mid-2023.

Origin

Attractiveness theories based on canthal tilt center on a few scientific studies, mostly conducted by plastic surgeons, in the late 2000s and early 2010s. One of the most notable was conducted in January 2007 by scientists and researchers Mounir Bashour and Craig Geist for Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, dubbed "Is medial canthal tilt a powerful cue for facial attractiveness?"^[1][2] The study's purpose was "To identify medial canthal tilt as an important cue used by judges in evaluating human female facial attractiveness" and its result was "Female faces with accentuated medial canthal tilt [positive canthal tilt] were preferred 93% of the time over unmodified faces." As stated, the study only conducted the attractiveness of women.

Another study was conducted in May 2014 by scientists and researchers at The Angle Orthodontist called "Comparison of soft-tissue orbital morphometry in attractive and normal Italian subjects."^[3][4] The study's objective was "To identify esthetic characteristics of the orbital soft tissues of attractive Italian adult women and men." It found that "The inclinations of the eye fissure were increased in attractive subjects, while the inclinations of the orbit were reduced," in layman's terms, narrow eyes and positive canthal tilt were found to be attractive.

Discourse about canthal tilt dates back to around 2013 on the various imageboards of 4chan within Rate Me threads. For instance, an early utterance was in an /r9k/ ^[5] thread posted on September 30th, 2012. Referencing one's canthal tilt specifically became commonplace on 4chan's /fit/ board in 2013. For instance, "canthal tilt" was first uttered on /fit/^[6] on September 4th, 2013 (shown below).

Spread

Discussions and discourse about canthal tilt continued to surface online going into the late 2010s, likely spreading on the now-defunct subreddit /r/Incels in 2013, when it was created, and the now-defunct incel forums lookism.net^[7] and incel.co^[8] in 2015 and 2018, when the websites first went live. Around the same time, in August 2014, "canthal tilt" was first uttered on the website formerly known as Twitter^[9] by user @porkergolden.

Despite usage in the 2010s, the memetic and ironic usage of "canthal tilt" as a way to make fun of incels predominantly started in 2020. For instance, on December^[10] 22nd, 2020, X^[10] user @merrittk shared the first-known viral post to reference "canthal tilt" on the platform (formerly known as Twitter), gaining roughly 4,700 likes in three years (shown below, left). On March 5th, 2021, iFunnier ^[11] @Muthsera shared a Jarvis Commands meme that also referenced the 1998 Eye Chart, gaining over 350 smiles in two years (shown below, right).

Humorous videos about canthal tilt also surfaced on TikTok, predominantly starting in 2023, coinciding with the then-recent Looksmaxxing trend. For instance, on April 23rd, 2023, TikToker^[12] @dillon.latham posted a video with text reading, "When bro tries to intimidate you, but he has a negative canthal tilt and prey eyes," gaining roughly 1.3 million plays and 99,000 likes in four months (shown below, left). On May 18th, 2023, TikToker^[13] @okla.yay posted a video that responded to a canthal tilt-related comment, gaining roughly 596,400 plays and 17,300 likes in three months (shown below, right).

Canthal Tilt TikTok Filter

Sometime before late July 2023, TikToker^[14] @marsczar created a filter called "Canthal Tilt"^[15] that showed one's canthal tilt with a red line going across their line of sight. On July 25th, 2023, TikToker^[16] @op.vix posted the first-known video with the filter, gaining roughly 1.2 million plays and 30,300 likes in two weeks (shown below, left). On August 5th, 2023, TikToker^[17] @calvero_sings used the filter in a video that gained roughly 5.9 million plays and 405,300 likes in three days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References